Guides / Apache / MIT license

Best open models with an Apache 2.0 or MIT license

Updated November 2026

As of November 2026, the best option is Nanbeige4.3 33B by Nanbeige (Kanzhun), with a Small LM Index of 77.8, followed by Qwen3.8 27B (77.0) and Ternary Bonsai 2 27B (74.6).

Models released under Apache 2.0 or MIT, the most permissive common licenses, ranked by the Small LM Index. Always check the license yourself before shipping.

#	Model	Lab	Small LM Index	Params	Memory (4-bit)	API / 1M	License
1	Nanbeige4.3 33B	Nanbeige (Kanzhun)	77.8	33.1B	~23 GB	self-host	Apache-2.0
2	Qwen3.8 27B	Alibaba (Qwen)	77.0	27B	~17.9 GB	$0.13	Apache-2.0
3	Ternary Bonsai 2 27B	PrismML	74.6	27.4B	~18.2 GB	self-host	Apache-2.0
4	Qwen3.6 27B	Alibaba (Qwen)	74.0	27B	~17.9 GB	$0.90	Apache-2.0
5	Muse Glimmer 30B	Meta	72.6	29.6B	~19.2 GB	$0.53	Apache-2.0
6	Qwen3.6 35B-A3B	Alibaba (Qwen)	72.2	35B (3B active)	~22.6 GB	$0.031	Apache-2.0
7	Qwen3.5 27B	Alibaba (Qwen)	70.6	27B	~17.9 GB	$0.69	Apache-2.0
8	Nanbeige4.2 3B	Nanbeige (Kanzhun)	70.4	4.2B	~3.8 GB	self-host	Apache-2.0
9	Gemma 4 31B	Google	70.1	30.7B	~21.9 GB	$0.16	Apache-2.0
10	Qwen3.5 35B-A3B	Alibaba (Qwen)	69.9	35B (3B active)	~22.6 GB	$0.24	Apache-2.0
11	Kolibri-1	Aleph Alpha	68.3	78.1B (3.5B active)	~49.6 GB	self-host	Apache-2.0
12	Spark-X2.6 4B	SparkLLM (XHToken)	67.5	4.1B	~3.4 GB	self-host	Apache-2.0
13	Gemma 4 26B-A4B	Google	67.5	25.2B (3.8B active)	~16.8 GB	$0.068	Apache-2.0
14	Granite 4.2 30B	IBM (Granite)	67.0	30B	~21.4 GB	self-host	Apache-2.0
15	GLM-4.7-Flash	Z.ai (GLM)	66.1	31B (3B active)	~20.4 GB	$0.15	MIT

Memory covers the weights only; long contexts need more. Scores are mostly lab-reported, so gaps of 1–2 points are noise. See the methodology, or filter the full leaderboard yourself.

Head to head

Questions

What is the best open LLM with a permissive license for commercial use?

As of November 2026, the best option is Nanbeige4.3 33B by Nanbeige (Kanzhun), with a Small LM Index of 77.8, followed by Qwen3.8 27B (77.0) and Ternary Bonsai 2 27B (74.6).

How is this list ranked?

Models released under Apache 2.0 or MIT, the most permissive common licenses, ranked by the Small LM Index. Always check the license yourself before shipping.

Which of the top five needs the least memory?

Qwen3.8 27B, at about 17.9 GB with 4-bit quantization.

Which is the cheapest to use through an API?

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B, at $0.031 per million tokens from the cheapest provider on OpenRouter.